President Obama, civil rights leaders and entertainers will dedicate the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, an event that was postponed in late August because of Hurricane Irene.

Gates open at 6 a.m. to the free ceremony at West Potomac Park that’s open to the public, with no tickets required. The memorial near the Jefferson Memorial features two huge stone boulders that give way to a huge stone-carved likeness of King.

The Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation released a list of participants and ceremony details Tuesday. The program begins at 9 a.m. with comments by Julian Bond, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), Marian Wright Edelman, former Ambassador Andrew Young, Rev. Jesse Jackson and others plus members of the King family and journalist Dan Rather. Jennifer Holliday and poet Nikki Giovanni are among the musical and spoken-word performers.

The official dedication at 11 a.m. with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will be broadcast on large-screen TVs set up in the park. More dignitaries and celebrities — singer Aretha Franklin, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and others — are expected to participate, according to the foundation’s statement.

The memorial, which has been open since mid-August, marks the 395th site added to the National Park Service. The original ceremony was scheduled Aug. 28 on the 48th anniversary of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Sunday October 16 has been declared as Steve Jobs Day in the iconic Apple chief’s home state of California, on the same day the company holds a memorial service for its late founder.

California Gov Jerry Brown tweeted on Friday evening that Sunday ‘will be Steve Jobs Day in the State of California’ – a salute to come 11 days after the computer genius died aged 56, following a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

In issuing the proclamation, the governor wrote that the products that Jobs introduced ‘changed the way the entire world communicates’.

The declaration read: ‘In his life and work, Steve Jobs embodied the California dream. To call him influential would be an understatement.

‘His innovations transformed an industry, and the products he conceived and shepherded to market have changed the way the entire world communicates.

‘Most importantly, his vision helped put powerful technologies, once the exclusive domain of big business and government, in the hands of ordinary consumers.

‘We have only just begun to see the outpouring of creativity and invention that this democratization of technology has made possible.

‘It is fitting that we mark this day to honour his life and achievements as a uniquely Californian visionary. He epitomized the spirit of a state that an eager world watches to see what will come next.’

Apple has invited some of Silicon Valley’s biggest names to a private memorial service for Jobs on the same day, according to a copy of the invitation and several invitees cited by The Wall Street Journal on Friday.

The event will be held at Stanford University’s campus on Sunday evening. It follows a small private funeral held for the Apple co-founder and chief executive last week.

The memorial is expected to be attended by Silicon Valley luminaries and others close to Jobs, said the invitees.

Guests to the invitation-only service were asked to respond to Emerson Collective, a philanthropic organization established by Laurene Powell Jobs, the father-of-four’s wife.

It was on the Stanford campus that Jobs met his future wife, who was studying for a graduate business degree, in 1989 when he gave a talk to students.

And it was also there that in 2005 he delivered his most famous and moving speech, on the lessons he had learned from his first struggles with the disease.

‘Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life,’ he said in a commencement address to students.

‘Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

‘Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.’

Apple also plans to host an event for Apple employees to celebrate Jobs’ life at its headquarters in Cupertino on October 19.

Jobs’ legacy continued to resonate across the globe on Friday in commercial terms as well as tributes.

Apple shares closed at a record high as the company put its latest device, the iPhone 4S, on sale at retail stores in the U.S. and six other countries.

Long lines formed at various locations, even though the company had already seen strong pre-orders for the device, MarketWatch reported.

Apple said earlier this week that pre-orders for the iPhone 4S topped the one million mark in its first 24 hours – surpassing the record set by its last smartphone product, the iPhone 4.

Steven P. Jobs, the charismatic technology pioneer who co-founded Apple Inc. and transformed one industry after another, from computers and smartphones to music and movies, has died. He was 56.

Apple announced the death of Jobs — whose legacy included the Apple II, Macintosh, iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad.

“We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today,” Apple said. “Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.”

He had resigned as chief executive of Apple in August, after struggling with illness for nearly a decade, including a bout with pancreatic cancer in 2003 and a liver transplant six years later.

Few public companies were as entwined with their leaders as Apple was with Jobs, who co-founded the computer maker in his parents’ Silicon Valley garage in 1976, and decades later — in a comeback as stunning as it seemed improbable — plucked it from near-bankruptcy and turned it into the world’s most valuable technology company.

Jobs spoke of his desire to make “a dent in the universe,” bringing a messianic intensity to his message that technology was a tool to improve human life and unleash creativity.

“His ability to always come around and figure out where that next bet should be has been phenomenal,” Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates, the high-tech mogul with whom Jobs was most closely compared, said in 2007.

In the annals of modern American entrepreneur-heroes, few careers traced a more mythic sweep. An adopted child in a working-class California home, Jobs dropped out of college and won the title “father of the computer revolution” by the age of 29. But by 30 he had been forced out of the company he had created, a bitter wound he nursed for years as his fortune shrank and he fought to regain his early eminence.

Once out of the wilderness of exile, however, he brought forth a series of innovations — unveiling them with matchless showmanship — that quickly became ubiquitous. He turned the release of a new gadget into a cultural event, with Apple acolytes lining up like pilgrims at Lourdes.

Jobs was born in San Francisco on Feb. 24, 1955, to Joanne Carole Schieble and Syrian immigrant Abdulfattah Jandali, unmarried University of Wisconsin graduate students who put him up for adoption. He was adopted by Paul Jobs, a high school dropout who sold used cars and worked as a machinist, and his wife, Clara.

Jobs’ willfulness and chutzpah were evident early on. At 11, he decided he didn’t like his rowdy and chaotic middle school in Mountain View, Calif., and refused to go back. His family moved to a nearby town so he could attend another school.

When he was 12 or 13, Jobs would recall, he called the home of William Hewlett, one of the founders of Hewlett-Packard Co., to ask about parts he needed for a device he was building. For Jobs, it led to a humble summer job on a Hewlett-Packard assembly line, which he compared to being “in heaven.”

While attending Homestead High School in Cupertino, Calif., Jobs met Steve Wozniak, who was nearly five years older. A technical wizard who was in and out of college, Wozniak liked to make machines to show off to other tinkerers.

The two collaborated on a series of pranks and built and sold “blue boxes” — devices that enabled users to hijack phone lines and make free — and illegal — calls.

In 1972, Jobs dropped out of Reed College in Oregon after six months but lingered on campus, sleeping on friends’ dorm-room floors. He sat in on classes that interested him, such as calligraphy, which later inspired him to offer Macintosh users multiple fonts, a feature that would become a fixture of personal computing.

He worked sporadically as an electronics technician at video game maker Atari Inc., traveled to India on a quest for enlightenment and found guidance from a Zen Buddhist master.

Meanwhile, Wozniak had created a computer circuit board he was showing off to a group of Silicon Valley computer hobbyists. Jobs saw the device’s potential for broad appeal and persuaded Wozniak to leave his engineering job so they could design computers themselves.

In April 1976, the two launched Apple Computer out of Jobs’ parents’ garage, reproducing Wozniak’s circuit board as their first product.

They called it the Apple I and set the price at $666.66 because Wozniak liked repeating digits. In the following year came the Apple II, which carried a then-novel keyboard and color monitor and became the first popular home computer. When the company went public in 1980, the 25-year-old Jobs made an estimated $217 million.

Whether pitching a product or wooing a job candidate, Jobs liked to paint what he was selling as part of a revolution, an idea that reverberates in Silicon Valley start-ups today.

“He was by far the most articulate person our industry has ever had,” said Esther Dyson, a longtime technology observer and entrepreneur.

When he approached PepsiCo executive John Sculley to become chief executive of Apple in 1983, Jobs asked him, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want to change the world?”

At Apple, Jobs spearheaded the creation of a computer he called Lisa (also the name of his daughter born to a former girlfriend). The cocky, headstrong Jobs tangled with Lisa engineers over the direction of the computer, and Apple executives curtailed his role in the project. “It hurt a lot,” Jobs told a Playboy interviewer.

Jobs turned his attention to a small research effort called Macintosh, producing what he described as “the most insanely great computer in the world,” with a graphics-rich interface and a mouse that allowed users to navigate much more easily than they could with keyboard commands.

In 1984, Apple promoted the Macintosh with a television spot that aired during the Super Bowl. The minute-long commercial portrayed a sledgehammer-hurling runner heroically smashing the image of a sinister Big Brother figure, who was preaching to an assembly of gray drones.

The Orwellian tyrant, as Jobs portrayed it, was rival IBM Corp., then the dominant computer maker. In a 1985 Playboy interview, he cast IBM as the great enemy of innovation and described the battle as nothing less than light versus dark in the race for the future.

“If, for some reason, we make some giant mistakes and IBM wins, my personal feeling is that we are going to enter sort of a computer Dark Ages for about 20 years,” he said. “Once IBM gains control of a market sector, they almost always stop innovation. They prevent innovation from happening.”

Macintosh inaugurated an era of visual, clickable computing that remains the norm today, and its look, adopted by Microsoft for its Windows software, became a global standard. Still, although Jobs was a celebrity and wealthy beyond imagining, the Macintosh struggled early to capture sales and trailed the increasingly popular IBM PC.

As panic set in about the Macintosh’s problems, tensions flared between Jobs and Sculley, who, with the Apple board’s blessing, further reduced Jobs’ role. Jobs resigned in 1985, a 30-year-old tech king deposed from the palace he had built. As he saw it, he was fired.

“What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating,” Jobs later recalled in a Stanford University address. “I didn’t really know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down.

“I was a very public failure.”

He started NeXT Computing, which made computers for higher education and corporations. Technologists took to the computers — including British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, who used them to create the World Wide Web in the early 1990s. But at $6,000, they were too expensive for consumers and failed to catch on.

In what many saw as a hobby, Jobs began dabbling in moviemaking technology in 1986, buying a small computer graphics division from filmmaker George Lucas‘ Lucasfilm Ltd. and renaming the company Pixar.

Around that time he met Laurene Powell, a Stanford business student, and they were married in 1991 by a Buddhist monk.

Jobs also found his biological mother, Joanne Simpson, and biological sister, Mona Simpson. He and his sister became close, and she dedicated her 1992 novel “Anywhere But Here” to him and their mother.

By then, he had established a relationship with his daughter Lisa. Jobs initially denied paternity and refused to pay child support. He eventually accepted her as his child, and she is now a New York writer.

NeXT and Pixar struggled financially, and he sank much of his personal fortune — upward of $70 million — into the two companies, according to Alan Deutschman’s “The Second Coming of Steve Jobs” (2000). Setbacks mounted as he slashed staff and scaled back both operations.

A 1993 Wall Street Journal article described “the decline of Mr. Jobs,” saying that his vision for NeXT resembled “a pipe dream” and portraying him as a once-great but increasingly irrelevant figure who might survive “as a niche player.”

The turnaround began in late 1995 when Pixar released “Toy Story,” the first feature-length computer-animated film, and it became a smash hit. Pixar went public one week later, making Jobs a billionaire, and has continued to produce box-office hits such as “Up,”“Finding Nemo” and two “Toy Story” sequels. Walt Disney Co. bought Pixar for $7.5 billion in 2006, making Jobs the entertainment giant’s largest shareholder.

In Jobs’ absence, Apple had been foundering as its share of the computer market shriveled. Seeking new software for the Macintosh, Apple decided on NeXT’s system, and bought the company for $377 million.

Jobs came back to Apple as a “special advisor” in 1996, but within a year he orchestrated the ouster of most of Apple’s board and had himself installed as chief executive. He reshaped a moribund company into a $380-billion technology titan, which this year temporarily surpassed Exxon Mobil Corp. as the world’s most valuable company.

The comeback was powered by a string of blockbuster products for which Jobs is largely credited — each of which had far-reaching effects in both culture and industry.

“To have your whole music library with you at all times is a quantum leap in listening to music,” he said in a 2001 presentation. “How do we possibly do this?” A moment later, he pulled the first iPod from his jeans pocket to show off the answer.

With the iPod’s release, Jobs lighted the way for the entertainment industry in the digital age. The iPod became Apple’s most popular product and soon captured about 70% of the market for digital music players.

Two years later, through deals that Jobs brokered with the recording industry, Apple opened its iTunes online store, which is now the country’s No. 1 music retailer.

With iTunes — which expanded to selling movies, TV shows, books and games — Jobs transformed Apple from a computer maker into one of the primary gatekeepers for the explosion of online media.

The iPhone, introduced in 2007, gave the cellphone a touch screen and a Web browser and enabled the growth of a booming industry of small mobile games and applications. It was then that Jobs dropped the word “Computer” from Apple’s name to make it simply Apple Inc.

Last year, Apple released its iPad tablet computer, a wireless reading, gaming and Web-surfing slate that has sold nearly 30 million units since its release.

In a testament to Jobs’ knack for picking transforming technologies, many industry analysts believe the iPad will hasten the demise of the laptop and desktop computers that Jobs himself once helped bring to prominence.

In his second term at Apple, Jobs’ instincts became the company’s internal compass. Unlike many chief executives, Jobs shunned focus groups and consumer surveys, personally driving Apple’s search for the next great idea.

“A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them,” Jobs once told BusinessWeek magazine.

He had a cult-like following, and he mesmerized audiences when unveiling Apple’s newest products, but no one was shown anything until Jobs said it was time. He kept a tight lid on information flowing out of the Cupertino company.

He was known as an imperious boss with little patience for weakness, one who launched blistering tirades that left subordinates fuming, or in tears.

“Steve tests you, challenges you, frightens you,” Todd Rulon-Miller, a friend and NeXT executive, said in “The Second Coming of Steve Jobs.” “He uses this as a tactic to get to the truth.”

Mercurial and brilliant, Jobs presented himself as an outsider even at the apex of American business, a convention-bucking visionary who was willing to wade into new industries to do battle with movie studios, record labels and cellphone giants. As a Buddhist and vegetarian following the principles of minimalism, he nearly always appeared in public in a black turtleneck, worn jeans and sneakers.

Apple’s “Think Different” ad campaign, with its parade of iconic pioneers and world-shaping figures from Einstein to Gandhi, relentlessly promoted the concept of triumphant individual genius. The implicit hero was Jobs himself, who embodied that ideal as much as any modern American.

Jobs was not afraid to blast rivals — chief among them software giant Microsoft, whose products he once described as “really third-rate” and aesthetically tasteless. The skewering later became more playful, with TV commercials portraying Microsoft users as frumpy and bookish and hipper Mac fans as stylish and quick-witted.

An intensely private person, Jobs rarely discussed his personal life and had little taste for the trappings of celebrity. As a philanthropist, his public profile paled beside that of Gates and Warren Buffett, and critics wondered why Jobs — who had an estimated net worth of $8.3 billion — didn’t give more money away, or if he did, why he kept it secret.

For years, Jobs’ health was an issue that wouldn’t go away. Although he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003, he did not reveal his illness for nine months, according to a Fortune magazine report. He finally agreed to surgery in 2004.

After the surgery, Jobs announced that he had recovered. But in 2008, he underwent a liver transplant that was only later brought to light by the Wall Street Journal. As time went on, Jobs looked noticeably thinner in public appearances.

In a Stanford commencement speech in 2005, Jobs spoke at length about mortality and its value as a force against complacency.

“Death is very likely the best invention of life,” he said in the speech. “All pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure, these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

Michael Jackson slurred his speech after visits to Beverly Hills dermatologist Dr. Arnold Klein, trips that became “very regular” for the pop star in the weeks before his death, Jackson’s personal assistant testified Wednesday.

Defense lawyers for Dr. Conrad Murray, who is on trial for involuntary manslaughter in Jackson’s death, contend that Klein addicted the singer to Demerol during those visits, something Murray did not know about.

His withdrawal from that Demerol addiction was what kept Jackson awake despite Murray’s efforts to put him to sleep with sedatives the morning he died, the defense contends, arguing that Klein is at least partly responsible for Jackson’s death because of the Demerol.

Michael Amir Williams, who worked for Jackson the last two years of his life, was asked by defense lawyer Ed Chernoff whether he went to Klein’s office with Jackson.

“At a certain point, it was very regular,” Williams said.

Chernoff then asked Williams whether he’d ever heard Jackson talk slowly with slurred speech, as he did on an audio recording played in court Tuesday.

“Not that extreme, but I have heard him talk slow before,” Williams said.

“And when he left Dr. Klein’s office, have you observed him sometimes to talk slow?” Chernoff asked.

Sometimes, Williams replied, “he would talk slow like that. I never heard it that extreme, but I can definitely say he has come out, and he’s a little slower.”

“There were times he would go almost every day” to Klein’s office, and Jackson often appear intoxicated when he left, Muhammad testified.

Jackson once told Muhammad that his frequent trips to the dermatologist were for treatment for a skin disease.

“My doctors tell me that I have to go, so I go,” Muhammad said Jackson told him.

At the start of court proceedings Wednesday, Paul Gongaware, an executive with the company promoting Jackson’s comeback concerts, said he noticed that Jackson had “a little bit of a slower speech pattern, just a slight slur in the speech” after a visit with Klein.

Medical records show that Klein gave Jackson numerous shots of Demerol in the weeks before his death, Chernoff told jurors Tuesday.

Jackson’s inability to sleep the morning he died was “one of the insidious effects” of Demerol addiction withdrawal, Chernoff said. Since Murray did not know about the Demerol, he could not understand why Jackson was unable to fall asleep that morning, Chernoff said.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor previously ruled that while the jury can see some of the records of Klein’s treatment of Jackson, the doctor would not testify. Demerol was not found in Jackson’s body during the autopsy, which makes Klein’s testimony irrelevant, Pastor ruled.

Testimony from Williams and Muhammad included emotional details about the chaos in the Jackson home and at the hospital the day Jackson died.

Williams described Wednesday a frantic series of phone calls that started at 12:13 p.m. June 25, 2009, the day the pop icon died.

“Call me right away, please, call me right away,” Murray said in a voice message to Williams, which prosecutors played in court Wednesday.

“Get here right away; Mr. Jackson had a bad reaction,” Williams said Murray told him when he called him back.

Williams then ordered a security guard to rush to the upstairs bedroom where Murray was working to resuscitate Jackson.

Muhammad, one of those ordered upstairs, described seeing Jackson on a bed with his eyes open and his mouth “slightly opened” as Murray tried to revive him.

“Did he appear to be dead?” Deputy District Attorney David Walgren asked.

“Yes,” Muhammad replied.

Jackson’s two oldest children were standing just outside the room, watching in shock, Muhammad said.

“Paris was on the ground, balled up, crying. And Prince, he was standing there, he just had a real shocked, you know, slowly crying, type of shocked look on his face,” he said.

His description of Murray’s efforts to revive Jackson raised questions about Murray’s knowledge of how to perform CPR.

It was several minutes before the guard called for an ambulance.

Williams and Muhammad later rode with Jackson’s three children to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, following the ambulance that carried their father.

Jackson family members slowly arrived at the emergency room and joined the children, who were kept in a private room with their nanny while doctors tried to revive their father, Williams said.

“Dr. Murray and the doctors walked out, and they closed the curtain and said, ‘He’s dead,’ ” he testified.

Williams described what he called an odd request by Murray at the hospital for a ride back to Jackson’s home after he was pronounced dead.

Murray told Williams he needed to go back to retrieve “some cream” from Michael’s bedroom that Jackson “wouldn’t want the world to know about.”

The prosecution contends that Murray wanted to retrieve evidence of his medical misconduct that led to Jackson’s death.

A lawyer hired by concert promoter AEG to draw up the contract with Murray testified that Murray requested a cardiopulmonary resuscitation machine and money to hire a second doctor to help him care for Jackson.

The additional doctor and the CPR equipment were never provided, since the contract was not signed before Jackson died, attorney Kathy Jorrie testified.

She told the court that it was her understanding that Murray did not want the CPR unit or the additional doctor until he arrived in London with Jackson in July 2009 for the “This Is It” concerts.

“I asked Dr Murray, why do we need a CPR machine?” Jorrie testified.

Murray told her he needed it since “given (Jackson’s) age and the strenuous performance he would be putting on, that if something went wrong, he would have it,” she said.

The second doctor would be necessary because “if (Murray) was tired or unavailable, he wanted to make sure there was someone else to be of assistance” to Jackson.

AEG is being sued by Jackson’s mother, Katherine, based on her contention that the concert promoter hired and controlled Murray when he was caring for her son.

The prosecution contends that part of the negligence that makes Murray criminally liable for Jackson’s death is the lack of monitoring and CPR equipment on hand when Jackson died.

The trial began Tuesday with prosecutors playing a stunning audio recording of an apparently drugged Jackson slurring his words weeks before his death. Prosecutors also showed jurors a photo of Jackson’s corpse on a hospital gurney.

Jackson’s struggle to sleep between rehearsals for his “This Is It” comeback concerts is central to the prosecution and defense theories of how the entertainer died.

Walgren blamed Murray for Jackson’s death, saying he abandoned “all principles of medical care” when he used the surgical anesthetic propofol to put Jackson to sleep every night for more than two months.

The coroner ruled that Jackson’s death was the result of “acute propofol intoxication” in combination with sedatives.

Defense lawyer Chernoff contended that Jackson, desperate for sleep, caused his own death by taking a handful of sedatives and drinking propofol while the doctor was out of the room.

Chernoff told the jury that scientific evidence will show that, on the morning Jackson died, he swallowed a sedative without his doctor’s knowledge, “enough to put six of you to sleep, and he did this when Dr. Murray was not around.”

Jackson then ingested a dose of propofol on his own, creating “a perfect storm that killed him instantly,” Chernoff said.

“When Dr. Murray came into the room and found Michael Jackson, there was no CPR, no paramedic, no machine that was going to revive Michael Jackson,” he said.

“He died so rapidly, so instantly that he didn’t have time to close his eyes,” Chernoff said.

Chernoff told jurors that Murray was trying to wean Jackson off propofol when Jackson died.

Jackson’s death was “tragic, but the evidence will not show that Dr. Murray did it,” Chernoff told jurors.

The prosecution contends that Murray wanted to retrieve evidence of his medical misconduct that led to Jackson’s death.

Murray appeared to become emotional at one point as Chernoff presented his opening statement Tuesday morning, dabbing his eyes at times. Mostly, though, the defendant remained stoic through the proceedings.

If convicted of involuntary manslaughter, Murray could spend four years in a California prison and lose his medical license.

Prosecutors played clips from Murray’s interview with investigators in which he described giving Jackson a final dose of the propofol after a long, restless night when the singer begged for help sleeping.

“The evidence in this case will show that Michael Jackson trusted his life to the medical skills of Conrad Murray, unequivocally that that misplaced trust had far too high a price to pay,” Walgren said. “That misplaced trust in the hands of Conrad Murray cost Michael Jackson his life.”

The most dramatic moment Tuesday came when jurors heard a May 10, 2009, recording, captured by Murray’s iPhone, of Jackson “highly under the influences of unknown agents,” as he talked about his planned comeback concert, according to Walgren.

“We have to be phenomenal,” Jackson said in a low voice, his speech slurred. “When people leave this show, when people leave my show, I want them to say, ‘I’ve never seen nothing like this in my life. Go. Go. I’ve never seen nothing like this. Go. It’s amazing. He’s the greatest entertainer in the world.’ I’m taking that money, a million children, children’s hospital, the biggest in the world, Michael Jackson’s Children’s Hospital.”

The tape, prosecutors say, is evidence that Murray knew about Jackson’s health problems weeks before his death.

Jurors also saw a video of the superstar rehearsing at the Staples Center in Los Angeles the night before he died. Jackson sang and danced to “Earth Song,” the last song he would rehearse on stage.

Prosecutors also presented a photo of Jackson’s lifeless body on a hospital gurney, about 12 hours later.

Producer Kenny Ortega, the first prosecution witness, said Tuesday he was jolted by Jackson’s appearance when the latter arrived at a rehearsal, on June 19, less than a week before he died.

“He appeared lost and a little incoherent,” Ortega said. “I did not feel he was well.” Ortega said he gave the pop singer food and wrapped him in a blanket to ward off chills. Jackson watched the rehearsal and did not participate that day.

Ortega was helping Jackson prepare for the “This Is It” world tour scheduled for London’s O2 Arena in autumn 2009.

In an e-mail early June 20, Ortega wrote, in part, to AEG President Randy Phillips, “My concern is, now that we’ve brought the Doctor in to the fold and have played the tough love, now or never card, is that the Artist may be unable to rise to the occasion due to real emotional stuff.”

The producer said Jackson appeared weak and fatigued on June 19.

“He had a terrible case of the chills, was trembling, rambling and obsessing,” he wrote. “Everything in me says he should be psychologically evaluated. If we have any chance at all to get him back in the light. It’s going to take a strong Therapist to (get) him through this as well as immediate physical nurturing. … Tonight I was feeding him, wrapping him in blankets to warm his chills, massaging his feet to calm him and calling his doctor.”

Jackson also appeared to be scared of losing the comeback tour.

“I believe that he really wants this … it would shatter him, break his heart if we pulled the plug,” Ortega wrote. “He’s terribly frightened it’s all going to go away. He asked me repeatedly tonight if I was going to leave him. He was practically begging for my confidence. It broke my heart. He was like a lost boy. There still may be a chance he can rise to the occasion if (we) get him the help he needs.”

AEG was the concert promoter.

Murray was unhappy that Jackson did not rehearse June 19 and told Ortega not to try to be the singer’s physician, Ortega testified, adding that Jackson insisted the next day he was capable of doing the rehearsals. Jackson was a full rehearsal participant in the days before he died, the producer said.

Jackson’s parents, brothers Tito, Jermaine and Randy, and sisters La Toya, Janet and Rebbie filled a row in the courtroom for a second day of the trial. Jackson’s three children are not expected to attend the trial or testify, according to a source close to their grandmother, Katherine Jackson.

He is charged with involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors say he caused the pop star’s death by administering a powerful anaesthetic, propofol.

Dr Murray has denied the charges.

It has taken more than two years for the trial to come to court. BBC News looks back over the events that led to the court case.

1983 Conrad Murray graduates from Texas Southern University in Houston with a degree in pre-medicine and biological sciences. He continues his medical studies in Nashville, Tennessee, before completing his training in California and the University of Arizona where he studies cardiology.

2000 Dr Murray opens a practice in Las Vegas, expanding with a second clinic in Houston in 2006. Serving both ends of the community, he also provides medical care to deprived areas.

Jackson was rehearsing for his 50-date London residency when he died

2006 Dr Murray meets Michael Jackson after treating one of his children in Las Vegas, and the pair strike up a friendship.

May, 2009 Dr Murray is hired by promoters AEG Live, at Jackson’s request, as the star’s personal physician ahead of his This Is It 50-date concert comeback in London. He is put on a salary of more than $150,000 (£96,000) a month.

25 June, 2009 Dr Murray finds Jackson unconscious in the bedroom of his Los Angeles mansion. Paramedics are called to the house while Dr Murray is performing CPR, according to a recording of the 911 emergency call. He travels with the singer in an ambulance to UCLA medical centre where Jackson later dies.

22 July, 2009 The doctor’s clinic in Houston is raided by officers from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) looking for evidence of manslaughter.

Footage of the raid on Dr Murray’s clinic

28 July, 2009 Dr Murray’s home is also raided. The search warrant allows “authorised investigators to look for medical records relating to Michael Jackson and all of his reported aliases”. A computer hard drive and mobile phones are seized, and a pharmacy in Las Vegas is later raided in connection with the case.

29 July, 2009 Court documents filed in Nevada show that Dr Murray is heavily in debt, owing more than $780,000 (£501,000) in judgements against him and his medical practice, outstanding mortgage payments on his house, child support and credit cards.

29 August, 2009 Jackson’s death is ruled a homicide by the Los Angeles coroner, who says the cause of death was “acute propofol intoxication”. A cocktail of drugs – also including sedatives Midazolam and Diazepam, the painkiller Lidocaine and the stimulant Ephedrine – were detected in his body.

21 November, 2009 Court documents reveal that Dr Murray bought five bottles of propofol in May 2009, at around the same time he was hired as Jackson’s physician. The papers show that the doctor spent $853 (£515) to purchase the drug in Las Vegas, and then transported it to Los Angeles. The DEA says he has not broken any laws in doing so.

Dr Murray appears in court in Los Angeles

8 February, 2010 Dr Murray is charged with involuntary manslaughter. He pleads not guilty and is released on $75,000 (£48,000) bail. The judge says he can continue to practice medicine, but bans him from administering anaesthetic agents, “specifically propofol”.

4 January, 2011 Preliminary hearings begin. Prosecutors allege that Dr Murray “hid drugs” before calling paramedics on the day Jackson died. They also state that he did not perform CPR properly and omitted to tell paramedics that he had given Jackson propofol.

30 August, 2011 Michael Jackson’s dermatologist is barred from giving evidence at the trial. Dr Murray’s lawyers had planned to argue that Arnold Klein had administered the singer with painkillers for “no valid reason” but prosecutors said they were attempting to transfer responsibility for his death away from Dr Murray. Testimony from five other doctors who treated Jackson is also disallowed.

24 September, 2011 The jury is finalised. Half of the chosen panelists are Caucasian, five are Hispanic and one is African-American. The jurors have a wide range of professions, including a bus driver, paralegal and a bookseller.

27 September, 2011 Opening arguments take place in the televised trial, expected to last up to five weeks before the jury retires. Prosecutors say Dr Murray acted with “gross negligence” and gave Jackson a lethal dose of propofol. The defence claim Jackson administered too much of the sleeping aid himself.

how he obtains/loses his heart’s desire = CY = 37 = Singer. Musicians. Dad. Father. So Conrad’s undoing could be being singer and musician Michael Jackson’s father Joe Jackson wanting to see Conrad face the music.

34 month + 3 (3rd of the month on Monday October 3rd, 2011) = 37 = his personal day = singer and musician Michael Jackson’s father Joe Jackson wanting to see Conrad face the music.

[When his number (37 (how he obtains/loses his heart’s desire)) comes up, that’s when he gets to live/experience what he is here to live/experience. So this was his day.

Monday October 3rd, 2011 was potentially significant for Conrad Murray because both of his numbers came up on this day. It was his 34 (primary challenge) month and his 37 (how he obtains/loses his heart’s desire) day.]

34 month + 5 (5th of the month on Wednesday October 5th, 2011) = 39 = his personal day = The story is only half told when only one side tells it. Half-truths.

[When his number (39 (his life lesson number)) comes up, that’s when he gets to live/experience what he is here to live/experience. So this is HIS day.

Wednesday October 5th, 2011 is potentially significant for Conrad Murray because both of his numbers will come up on this day. It is his 34 (primary challenge) month and his 39 (his life lesson number) day.]

7 + 26 +1+9+2+9 = 54 = his life lesson = Asking questions. Things are not as they appear. Your guess is as good as mine. Who knows?

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July 26th, 1929

July 26th

7 + 26 +2+0+1+1 = 37 = his personal year (from July 26th, 2011 to July 25th, 2012) = Conrad’s undoing could be being singer and musician Michael Jackson’s father Joe Jackson wanting to see Conrad face the music.